


stay with me

by suddendistance



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 05:13:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10915041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suddendistance/pseuds/suddendistance
Summary: "His mind flickers the girl who he once taught how to whistle, the girl who he had shown how to ride a bike, the girl he had always given his Halloween candy to."Xander watches as Elise grows up - a modern AU.





	stay with me

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this last year but never got around to publishing it, so I decided to polish it up a bit and let it out into the world. Although it might be a bit rough around the edges, I'm rather fond of this one.
> 
> I hope you like it too.

By the time Elise was born, Xander was already ten years old.

By the time Elise was born, Xander already had an alcoholic father, more transient mother-figures than he cared to count, and two younger siblings.

By the time Elise was born, he acquiring yet another sibling was simply just another thing in life he couldn’t control, another added chore, another responsibility. Yet when he holds her for the first time in that cold hospital room, something changes. 

She was swathed in pink; her blonde hair was so pale it was almost white. He marvels at her perfect tiny hands, her little button nose.

“Hello Elise,” he whispers. “I’m Xander, your big brother.” And to his pleasure, she seems to understand him, even then. When she looks at him with those bright purple eyes and smiles - that was that - he is smitten.

* * *

When she starts learning how to walk, she gravitates towards him. She would catch sight of him would toddle across the room into his arms with all the grace of a baby unicorn. Her delighted squeals fill the room as he lifts her up into his arms, and they’d twirl around in their tiny living room like a prince and princess at a ball, oblivious to the shouts of their parents in the background.

* * *

One of his favourite things to do was to read to her. She would lean by his side, and he would read to her with their hands intertwined, the book illuminated by the warm glow of her lamp. Their nights would be filled with tales of conquest and fate; together, they leapt through time, ventured into invisible kingdoms and slayed dragons late into the night. The stories would often grow more animated with each telling, and as she grew older and more familiar with the stories, they would take turns voicing different characters. One night, after an especially moving story about a pair of twin royals locked in a bitter battle against their childhood friend, she looked up at him, worried. “Big brother? Will you stay with me?”

There was no hesitation in his response.

“Always.”

* * *

 Then it was autumn, and she began going to school. In preparation for the big day, he watches countless Youtube videos for weeks and practices braiding her hair to make sure it was just right for her first day. Not that it mattered, though – much to her teacher’s dismay, she cries endlessly when he drops her off. But when he comes around to pick her up in the afternoon, she greets him with a wide grin, and boldly announces that Effie is her new best friend. He smiles; it seems that the morning’s tears were long forgotten. 

* * *

He had never been much of a social butterfly. Sometimes, he’d find himself in awe of his little sister as she takes command of a room. People would always draw parallels between them, contrasting his serious demeanour to her easy charisma, her perpetual smile to his constant frown. They would comment on his dour expression - that it was ill to look so grim! - but he didn’t mind. What they didn’t know was that when he was with his baby sister, his smiles were as boundless as the sky itself.

* * *

He would take her to the park to play, and watches as she tirelessly plays on the slide and see-saw with other children. Somedays, she’d play tag until her knees wobbled; other days, she’d play soccer or settle in the sandpit. Even if she had never met the other child before, she always had a knack for turning strangers into friends.

But when the sun starts to set and the streetlights begin to light up the sidewalk, she’d always be perched up atop the monkey bars. Her skinny legs and mismatched socks would dangle between the iron rods as she waited to be called by him. “Little princess,” he’d say, “It’s time to go home.” And that was all it took for her to hurry into the warmth of his arms.

It saddens him a little when she got older because she would find a way to the park without him.

* * *

Leo, Camilla and Xander came to watch her first violin recital. Together, they sat in rocky plastic chairs in an auditorium that had too many bodies and too little breathing space. Xander could feel his mind drifting as he listened to countless musicians - they were talented, no doubt, but they weren’t who he had come to see. After each one left the stage, he’d impatiently check the schedule to see if she was coming up next. And then finally, after a young boy finished his song and bowed and the spotlight refocused on the stage, a little girl with tiny blond pigtails steps out on stage. She looks small, the violin dwarfs her, but he could feel his chest swell with veritable pride as her fingers dance across the strings, each bow movement done purposefully and with precision.

When she finishes, the audience erupts into applause while she gave them a grand flourish. Xander even gives an uncharacteristic whoop, and surprises himself.

* * *

She has recitals almost every season, and was growing up faster than Xander would have liked. (Was she really 12 years old? He swears she had just started learning how to walk, and now she flies ahead of him).

When their father finally passes away from cirrhosis, Xander puts aside his studies and finds a full-time job to support his siblings. He no longer has time to drive Elise to school, but as the years pass, he finds that she would rather walk with her friends. She would roll her eyes when he offers to drive her, so eventually he stops asking.

There are other signs of her growing up, too. She trades baking with Camilla and teasing Leo about his clothes with gossiping about boys and shopping at the mall. “Going out with Effie and Arthur! I’ll be home late!” she’d text, and he’d sit at home by the window, worried until she returned. On more than one occasion, she chided him for doing so.

“Don’t frown like that, big brother! I can take care of myself!”

* * *

It is autumn, and it’s raining. It wasn’t a light drizzle, but a heavy torrential downfall that is rare for the time of year.

They were running late for her next recital but visibility was awful and Xander firmly believed in “better safe than sorry”. Elise pouts as she watched the rain poured down harder, but the pounding of the rain remained indifferent to their schedule. When they stopped at yet another red light, she sighs dramatically. “Toldya we shoulda left earlier”, she mumbles. She clicks the latches of her violin case, frustrated at their lack of progress. “I hope the rain stops soon.”

“We’ll get there when we get there,” Xander assures her, and tries to adjust the speed of his windshield wipers. “Though the rain really is -- “

But a shining red light catches his eyes and he doesn’t get to finish his sentence. He only has time to glance at her, to see her eyes widen. “Elise —!!” he shouts, or at least he tries to, but he is drowned out by the deafening screech of failing breaks and shattering glass. Those sounds become his world, and then there was nothing.

The rain continues on.

* * *

_Elise_.

His eyes fluttered open, and he’s in a foreign, unfamiliar room. Elise is nowhere to be found, so he painstakingly lifts himself off the bed and towards the door. He barely registers the sterile while lights, the pastel blue gown he wore. He almost falls, but steadies himself on a wall before sauntering forward. His only thoughts are of her. There are some distant shouts, some hands try to restrain him, but he is 6 feet of solid muscle and inconsolable. He stumbles into the lobby like a drunk, shouting for his sister. His head throbs and his arm burns anew with every step he takes, _but he could still walk, dammit, and he needs to know where she is._

They try to placate him by telling him he could see her in the morning, that both of them needed rest, that Leo and Camilla were on their way. But still he shouts and shouts and somehow a trolley of medical supplies is scattered on the floor.

A weary doctor finally directs him to his sister.

* * *

Normally, her shining presence filled the room, but in this sterile space, she is so small, so still. The only sounds in the room are the machines whirling, the only movement the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. he walks towards her slowly, as if she could break with any sudden movement. Her pulse continued weakly – he knows this because each beep from that machine is a reminder that his sister was still alive.

His mind flickers the girl who he once taught how to whistle, the girl who he had shown how to ride a bike, the girl he had always given his Halloween candy to. He closes his hand around hers, and is shocked by how cold they were. He thinks back to her perfect tiny hands, blinks back tears. And _Gods_ , had she always been this pale?

 _Will you stay with me?_ A small voice in the room seems to whisper to him.

He squeezes her hands and sobs openly into the quiet night.


End file.
